The palace bell tolls, and the stars twinkle overhead as I look out from the tower. I watch from my window as the procession of guests make their way into the heart of Evermore Castle. A knock comes at the door. It’s my brother Timothy, he tells me its time to make our entrance.
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We stride down the stairs, him in his finest attire. Myself I wear only a pale brown dress, as is tradition. My skin is tingling with anticipation of the events to come tonight. After tonight we will be recognized as full members of the people. One, two, three turns through the corridors. We come to a set of doors made of shimmering glass. Looking through the glass I see the ballroom filled with people from all the realms. The Winged folk of the Skylands, the flame haired members of Ashveil. Among these are many more races from various worlds, each of them here to welcome us into their worlds. Tonight, my brother and I will become full fledged members of the royal family.
The doors open, and the party stops for a moment as guests part making a path to the center of the room. My brother leads me by the hand not pulling, nor rushing me in any way. He knows what tonight means for us. Soon he will be the king, and all of this will change. The people will come not for my father but for him. They will work diligently under his reign to ensure the prosperity of each of their homeworlds.
My future is not so lavish or difficult, I have been assigned a much different role to play in all of this. Soon I like our mothers before us will go out into the fabric of space and sew my own threads. For among our kind this is the place of the women. To become the curators of worlds, and tonight all of them are going to have their eyes on me to try to learn which of their worlds I will serve.
The lights dim as my father gives a speech, something long and thoughtful about my ascent into goddess hood. For that is what I will become in truth, I will be the force that controls a world. He wishes favor to the guests and suggests perhaps I will join the pantheon that guards over them. At last he finishes, and he gestures to me to take the final steps upon the stage, and to begin the ritual.
I look out upon the crowd, all of them hoping that I will belong to one of them by the end of tonight. I look to my brother for comfort, and he smiles. He gives me a gesture that seems to tell me to just get on with it. Hmph get on with it, something he would say to a girl that was about to reveal to the worlds where her eternity would be spent. A girl who didn’t even know herself the answer to the question everyone was asking. What world will she rule...
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The stars above the castle shine brightly for a moment and in the dimmed lights of the ballroom I can feel it. As the hour changes and my body begins to change. I feel as for the first time I do what my mother and hers did before me. What every woman of my line has done as I change from my form of birth as a demi-human and embrace the side of my existence that I have never touched before. The part of me that lives only to be as she is meant to be.
The room is filled with a gust of wind, and I feel as my toes lift of the stage and I begin to float in the air. Lights appear out of nowhere and spiral around me, beckoning the eyes of all in the room. All at once I feel as I am no longer made of flesh and bone but of energy. Brilliant starlight erupts from my center and claims my body.
My predecessors came from the stars, they were very powerful unlike anything humanity had ever seen. They brought with them magic and welcome humanity as part of their family. From that union was my family born. From that union a promise was made that each daughter of the Nova family would become a goddess of the worlds that existed all across the universe. That was the belief we held once, our sacred duty. However, it had been many generations since a world had been born. The women born of late had all become members of existing world’s pantheons.
I knew at once that this was not my fate, as the starlight danced through me and reformed my being. My old flesh was no more, and my power raced across the room in the form of lights in the shapes of countless creatures that had never been seen before. Mirrors were placed around the room waiting for this moment when I would see as the guests did what my new visage would be.
I gasped as did the people around me, my form was not of a maiden of fire or the sky. Nor was it of any other known world. My skin was made of light and power and It radiated throughout the room. I was now the same as my ancestors, the family namesake. I was a true Nova born of the stars and gifted with their grace. I watched as at first their was amazement from the crowd at the sight of a new form. Then there was disgust and horror, I heard whisper of fear that I would ruin everything. That the balance of power would be destroyed if I did as the old stories claimed and created a new realm like the old people of the stars.
My brother mouthed a word to me from beside the stage, one that I would never forget as I watched the tears stream down his face.
“Go.”
And so I did, I was a star and thus not bound by reality. For stars make up the worlds we inhabit and cannot be chained by them. My light flashed once more across the room and I vanished. Not to be seen again.